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Moments in The Last Jedi That Made You Cringe


I found many moments in this movie to be cringeworthy. I was really enjoying the first hour of the movie, but as the film went on I found myself rolling my eyes one too many times. So here are the moments in the film (that I can remember) that really annoyed me:

The complete tonal shift. There were moments of humor in The Force Awakens and in all the other Star Wars movies, but this was the first IMO that went for a straight up comedic tone in several parts of the film. It felt at times like Johnson was trying to imitate the snappy dialogue of writers like Joss Whedon. Having watched Brick and Looper, I never got the impression that Johnson is a particularly funny writer. That being said, I did laugh at several points in the movie. I don't think this was the worst sin Johnson committed, but it is an example of his lack of regard for keeping any sort of consistency with The Force Awakens

Leia flying through space. Enough said.

Leia giving a speech about how Holdo "sacrificed herself and didn't need to be looked at as a hero". If you think about what actually happened, Holdo, Leia, Finn, and Poe are all responsible for the unnecessary deaths of several Resistance members. If Holdo had explained the plan to Poe from the start, that their plan was to evacuate undetected in small ships, then Finn would not have been sent to recruit DJ, who in turn would not have betrayed them and giving the First Order the information they needed to massacre the people in the escape pods. I'm not sure who is more at fault, Poe Dameron, Finn, Holdo, or Leia, but the bottom line is that a good chunk of the movie was pointless and resulted in many deaths. It baffles me that Johnson could write such stupid characters

Cheap and obvious emotional manipulation. If there is one word that I would use to describe Johnson's script it's "obvious". Despite his desperate need to subvert our expectations with his anti-twists, several scenes show how lazy he can be when writing pathos. In the scene when Luke dies, Rey claims something along the lines of "I can't feel him anymore. He's gone, but he's at peace". In other words, Johnson is TELLING you, the audience, how you should feel. Yes, Luke died, but it's not a tragedy like when Han Solo died. It's a happy death because Johnson decided to kill Luke off in the final 20 minutes of a 2.5 hour film and thus couldn't properly convey that it's not supposed to be sad

Another cheap, lazy example of emotional manipulation is when you see the slave children recreating Luke's final heroic act and then you see the kid practicing his lightsaber skills with a broom. Here Johnson is trying to say "yep, Luke's final sacrifice had the intended effect of galvanizing the galaxy against the First Order. A few minutes ago no one wanted to help the resistance but now they feel hope again. The scene was just so cheesy and saccharine. Once again Johnson is shoehorning story progression into a small space because he wasted so much of the film's running time on pointless sidequests

Finally, the most cringeworthy moment in the entire movie for me was when Rose told Finn "we aren't going to win by fighting those we hate, but by saving those we love". I swear, this is soap opera level writing. It's so fucking cheesy. Disney/Lucasfilm are infamous for micromanaging their projects, why did they not get a room of ghost writers to polish Johnson's script and give us something that isn't full of plot holes and embarrassing moments?

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I share the same idea about Holdo. Their plan failed just as poorly as Poe's did in the beginning. I see two differences: 1) They still approved of Poe's plan and as leaders his failure is their failure but they acted like it was all on him. 2) His plan was the result of trying to do something because the opportunity was there, their plan was basically to send out a Call for Help and hope that someone comes to their aid. The people that died because of his plan died with a chance to do something while the people that died because of their plan died because they ran out of fuel.

As for as the humor goes, it lost me at the first joke. The joke about putting Hux on hold simply does not make sense in that universe. It makes sense to us because we have regular phones and so that joke would be great in another film but by making it in a Star Wars film it took me out of the film as it was nothing that would have been said in that universe.

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"They still approved of Poe's plan and as leaders his failure is their failure but they acted like it was all on him"

One Youtube review pointed out something interesting: If the Admiral called off the attack on the dreadnought, then why did the bombers keep going? Why didn't they obey orders?

Why would Poe be to blame when all of those pilots technically disobeyed and did their own thing?

No clue.

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Speaking of the bombers. My friend works for a school district and the high School Physics teacher brought up something: When the bombs were dropped why did they go down? The battle happened in space. They should have just floated.

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The best guess is that they were pushed by the artificial gravity inside, although they do seem to keep accelerating after they leave the ship. It's silly either way, since launching torpedoes is already a thing in Star Wars.

Plus the bombs are dropped by a remote control that isn't even tethered to anything, a remote that can be easily dropped into space.

Plus, the bombers are so slow, as if they have one tiny thruster that wouldn't even lift R2D2.

Those things were literally designed for failure, basically.

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Yeah, Holdo was a terrible character, which is why I think it's so funny and cringe that we were expected to feel anything when she sacrificed herself. She spent the whole movie being a bitch to one of the only likable new characters and we're supposed to sympathize with her? She was only shoehorned into the movie to add another "strong female character". I didn't even bother getting into the clear political agenda in my list of cringeworthy things, and I consider my politics to be left wing. And I myself am not white, and I do hope that Hollywood gets to a point where having women, black, latino, and asian main characters in big blockbusters is very common. What does bother me though is that poorly written characters are being praised on social media and professional media simply because of their gender or race

And yeah, the humor was very jarring. The movie felt at times more like a winking Star Wars spoof. I could be pessimistic and say Johnson thinks Star Wars lore is ridiculous and decided to play it for laughs, kind of like the Schumacher Batman movies. But I think Johnson just felt that that is what audiences expect from big budget blockbusters now. That's part of the reason why WB's Suicide Squad and Justice League movies had so much forced humor in them. They were trying to follow the blueprint of the very successful MCU. But the thing is that with the MCU that humor came organically. When the MCU began with Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, etc. Marvel only had the rights to B-list characters. For the first Iron Man they hired a proven, capable comedy writer/director in Jon Favreau and got a lead actor in Downey Jr. who had the charisma and acting chops to deliver a funny performance without acting like a total buffoon. The comedic element could bring in casual audiences who didn't know or care about semi-obscure characters like Iron Man and then Thor and Captain America. Then it was only natural to keep this tone going for the rest of the franchise

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But it was unnecessary to do this with Star Wars. A Star Wars movie is going to draw in crowds with or without a bunch of jokes. Not to mention that the characters are not unknowns like Iron Man/Tony Stark (and even fans of Iron man comics were probably just happy to see him get a decent and successful film)

Everyone KNOWS Luke Skywalker is not a grumpy, crotchety old man who delivers snappy comebacks. That could maybe work with Han Solo, but not Luke. And why, if Hux is such an incompetent buffoon, was he ever promoted to such a high rank? In The Force Awakens he was portrayed as an almost Hitler-esque figure and in this movie he acts as a verbal and physical punching bag

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[deleted]

"because he wasted so much of the film's running time on pointless sidequests"

And his filler-laced script resulted in an initial running time of about 3 hours! It had to be sliced down from there. Significant scenes, like with Rey and Luke, had to be removed (to make room for filler!).

BB-8 actually says "I have a bad feeling about this" in his droid bloops, but the film needed SO MUCH cut from it that Poe's response, "Well I have a good feeling about it," had to get removed, resulting in the iconic line essentially missing from the movie. Technically it's there, but unintelligible.

I wouldn't have wanted to be an editor on this movie.

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[deleted]

Yeah I started cringing at the very first scene and just kept on cringing throughout the movie. By the end I had cringed my way right through the floor. I had to use the basement exit!

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Really lukes dead. I just thought he vanished. Sorry but with out a body any rouge script writer can just bring him back in the next movie. :/

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Luke milking the sea creature

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Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Truly cringe worthy and gross.


:-)

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Leia flying through space was indeed cringe worthy.


:-)

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